Forty years ago...

on an the anniversary of Chaucer's birth my daughter was conceived. Almost in the middle the phone rang and it was my best friend since high school. "I'll call you back, we're making a baby," I said. And what a baby we made.

Forty years ago today I feel back asleep after the clock radio alarm went off and I had a nightmare that Bobby Kennedy was shot. When I woke the nightmare continued. I thought about using the Clergy Council to go to Canada to get an abortion rather than bring a child into the world that shot great men like King and Kennedy while we fought a cruel war in Vietnam. I didn't believe the world get worse.

Today, I know it could get worse, much worse.

As for the abortion, I didn't go and I am grateful that the thought passed, for raising that child into womanhood was the most frutiful experience of my life. I say, it is not the thing I did best, but it is the best thing I did.

The politics around us have gone up and down and now down, down, down, down...but as for my daughter...she had had forty years of being loved...er make that adored, painful experiences and joyous ones. She has won some of her battles and lost some. We have had many more days where we've been in agreement then in disagreement. In other words she has had a life, and I hope she doubles her years, something that Kennedy and King did not get a chance to do.

I am grateful I didn't get that abortion, because not only did I get the opportunity to raise a wonderful daughter, I learned that there is a difference in the tragedy of the world around and the love of people close.

I am still learning things from my daughter, but she began teaching me in the womb, forty years ago today.